Often seen as one of the forgotten step children of the final fantasy series, Final Fantasy
2 was not given its fair chance to shine until many years later, despite giving us many of
the tropes that the Final Fantasy series became known and loved for. After their hail mary
attempt with the original Final Fantasy, it was up to squaresoft to maintain that exceptional
level of quality. This is the final fantasy 2 iceberg
1.If you grew up playing Final Fantasy II outside of Japan and are confused to see it
today as it seems to be a completely different game – then you’re not at all mistaken
or a victim of poor memory. Since Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III were not released
outside of Japan at the time of its original release, Final Fantasy IV was released simply
as Final Fantasy II outside of its country of origin.
The reason behind this is to simply avoid confusion, as it would have hindered the game’s
chances of sales since people would have ignored it since they hadn’t played 2 and 3 yet.
But it’s not that big of a deal when you remember the information that most Final Fantasy
games do not share any story between themselves, and instead, only have references at best.
Thus, you don’t miss out on the story for playing one of the random main installments.
Source: General knowledge, so just the Wiki pages
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_IV https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_IV
2.Similar to other games in the Final Fantasy franchise, II has been re-released on many
different platforms with minor graphical and gameplay enhancements. These platforms include
the WonderSwan Color, the PlayStation 1 and Portable, Gameboy Advance, PC, and many different
types of cell phones. However, the game has also been remade recently as part of the ‘Final
Fantasy Pixel Remaster’ series, which gives it reworked graphics and allows players to
experience it on a modern platform. The Pixel Remaster series is limited to the
mobile and PC platforms, so that caused Final Fantasy II to get review bombed as fans wanted
to experience it on consoles too – and it suffered from a few other technical issues
too.
Source: The wiki pages again since common knowledge, but for the review bomb: https://www.pcgamer.com/final-fantasy-pixel-remasters-review-bombed-on-metacritic/
3.If you’re a long-term fan of the Final Fantasy franchise, then you must have noticed
that Chocobo as a recurring means of transportation in the Final Fantasy universe. Everything
has a beginning and Final Fantasy II is the first game that introduced this creature that
we all know and love. You can find it directly south of the Kashuan Keep, as you’ll enter
a forest with a small patch of grass. If you walk over it, the secret Chocobo forest will
be unlocked and then you can ride them right away, no time wasted!
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zwlJJMFg4Q (entry in the first 30 seconds of the video
and then can see that the bird can be ridden right away)
4.Ever wondered what the amazing world of Final Fantasy II might look like from a world
map view, rather than the general graphics and sprites that we see in our playthroughs?
Although this might not be a very common request, you can consider it accepted. Once you obtain
the Ring from Scott in the game, which can be done quite early, there is a secret ability
that comes with it which not many players know of. If you press the Select and B button
at the same time, you will be shown a map-view of Final Fantasy II’s game world and it
will allow you to scout it out before you visit certain places to save your time.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPGt-Nd6hAI 5.Similar to the Chocobo, another character
that is recurring in the Final Fantasy franchise is a human called Cid, which had different
types of roles every time that we saw him, such as that of a protagonist and even an
antagonist depending on the game that you’re playing. And interestingly enough, Final Fantasy
II is the first time that Cid was introduced to the series too. Final Fantasy II is certainly
an overlooked game when you see how much it contributed to the overall series.
Source: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Cid#Final_Fantasy
6.RPG games can be pretty difficult sometimes and it’s annoying to beat certain bosses
who are designed to punish the player, especially if you’re not playing the game for the first
time and would rather avoid some of these fights. For Final Fantasy II, The Blood Sword
comes to the rescue, which can be found in the southwest corner of Fynn. Once the cyclone
appears and destroys everything in its wake, you can go and talk to a man inside a house
in that area and he’ll give you the Blood Sword among other items.
As soon as you get this sword, you will notice that it’s a very useless item that does
not provide any advantages to the player for using it nor is it particularly damaging to
the boss. So, why should you put in the effort of getting it if it’s so pointless? That’s
because it isn’t. If you fight the Emperor in Cyclone and in Palamedium, the Blood Sword
will deal immense level of damage – and these two boss fights are the only cases where
this weapon will do anything at all. So, if you ever disliked having to fight them the
normal way, this is what you should try out next.
Source: Another thing that is commonly known through FAQs for example, but here’s the
video of the gameplay in question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMFj2YOOu-k And FAQs: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/nes/563414-final-fantasy-ii/cheats
7.The leveling system for weaponry in Final Fantasy II is relies on how many times the
player uses them, similarly to other RPG games. The game requires the player to constantly
use the Fight command to earn skill points on weapons and they are leveled-up at regular
moments – so it’s the bit of process and it can be a bit more time-consuming than what
you were expecting. So, what you do here is exploit one of the
oldest glitches in the game in which you can select the ‘Fight’ option and cancel that
move so that you can go back to the ‘Target selection’ and it will still earn you a
skill point. You can repeat this for as many times as you want and it will keep making
your weapons generate skill points for themselves. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrmCdrkPwSo
(example begins a few seconds after 4 minutes) 8.The world of Final Fantasy II is divided
into square regions, and each of those regions have fixed enemy encounters that you won’t
have in other places if the developers did not intend for them to. However, there is
a glitch that can be triggered early on in the game that allows you to fight enemies
that you wouldn’t encounter until later on in the game.
What you need to do is to go to the south of Altea and to the end of the Peninsula there,
and then walk back and forth towards the tip that is located towards the south side of
this area. You will eventually start fighting enemies
that are normally only found in the Mysidia area – which is quite farther into the game.
The glitch does have advantages out of simply being amusing too – as you will be able
to earn Gil quickly and level up your magic and weapons faster than you normally could.
Fortunately, this glitch is not game-breaking and you can continue to play it normally after
you’re satisfied with the grinding. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEiYtu8roUc
9.The dual-wielding in Final Fantasy II, in principle, should simply inflict the exact
number of damage to the enemy as what the weapon’s level allows. However, there is
a bug in the NES version of the game that only the weapon’s damage stats in the dominant
hand of the player character are the ones that are accounted for and multiplied by two.
In easy words, this means that if you have a particularly strong weapon in the dominant
hand and a weaker one in the other, the game will ignore the weak weapon and think both
of your weapons have the same damage potential. This is by far the easiest exploit to use
in the game as it does not even require any extra effort and will happen when you play
the game normally as well – but regardless it’s an incredibly useful one.
Source: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Dual_wield_bug On top of the other firsts for final Fantasy,
the second in the series offers the very first female playable character in the series with
Maria. At least the first specifically stated female. Many fans speculated that firion and
Maria would end up together after the end of the game. The ending of the game does not
go into detail on the matter. However, in a novelization of the game, it has actually
confirmed that firion and Maria never actually hooked up after the end of the game.
10.You’ve heard of exploits where were enemies become weaker or your weapons become stronger
– but removing them altogether from the battle is something else. The Wall spell in
Final Fantasy II is glitched out in a way that if enemies get the Wall magic on them,
and then Toad, Warp, Death, or Break are used further on the same monsters – they will
immediately be disposed of from the battlefield. It’s quite a simple bug to use but can be
pretty useful in situations where you just want to be done with a wave of enemies – or
if you wish to break your own time record on how long you beat the game in the first
time.
Source: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Magic_bugs#Final_Fantasy_II 11.In the cult-classic Scott Pilgrim vs the
World movie, the character of Scott mentions that he can play the bass line of the Final
Fantasy II battle theme – but there is a hilarious detail in this that only dedicated
fans can notice. When the bass line is eventually played, it’s from Final Fantasy IV instead
of II. The reason behind it is the same as what was aforementioned in this video – Final
Fantasy IV was called II to avoid confusion over the second and third games not seeing
a global release – which ironically caused a different kind of confusion when II actually
did get released in the west. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_N8nK2HmT2I
12.Although it’s very common to see scripted boss-fights in video games that the player
is supposed to lose for the progression of the story line these days – it wasn’t
that common of a thing to see at the time of Final Fantasy II’s release since immersive
story-based games were not a regular thing on consoles. Since Final Fantasy II’s first
battle is a fight that the player must lose for character development, not only is it
the first game in the Final Fantasy franchise to do that – it’s one of the very first
video games to have that as a mandatory condition in general.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Klicnhkbcks&list=PLYtggmS_d2CgAaKcjaF5eKxnhw3CJEn1z (4:55)
13.Although proper names and localizations of Final Fantasy games became a normal thing
with the release and immense success of Final Fantasy VIII – things were very different
in the beginning not just for II, but some of the other games in the series too. When
taking every Final Fantasy game in consideration, II is the game that took the second-longest
time in the main-line series to get an English translation, which is a gap of 15 whole years
from when the game was originally released in Japan.
I know you’re wondering – so which game wins the number one spot here? That would
be Final Fantasy III, which beats II by a very small margin of one more year as it had
a gap of 16 full years from its original Japanese release.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_III
14.In the 2008 mobile game Final Fantasy IV: The Years After, enemies from II are featured
as guardians of the crystal for the True Moon, giving the game the nod that it deserves decades
after the original release. These enemies include Beezlebub, Astaroth, Iron Giant, and
the King Behemoth. Source: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_II#Trivia
15.Final Fantasy II is referenced heavily in another main-line entry of the series,
which happens to be Final Fantasy IX. The eidolon Ramuh tells a story that is about
a battle between nations and the sacrifice of a man named Josef, which allowed a group
of rebels to live and eventually engage into battle with the evil empire to save the world
from destruction. The developers were not subtle about this reference, as Josef’s
name is mentioned very directly – which is great because Final Fantasy II does deserve
16.Final Fantasy 2 has a large number of ports, remakes, and remasters. So not surprising
with such a large number of variants on the game, there come a large number of differences
between them with a variety of extra features, dialogue changes, and various modifications.
Dark Shadow Over Palakia: There was supposed to be a new version of the game right after
the first Famicon release that would have been the international release of the game.
Eventually, it was cancelled for the SNES version and Final Fantasy IV being simply
renamed II instead for the western audiences. Although not too much is known about the game,
one thing that caused a bunch of changes was to get rid of some of the religious imagery
in the game due to Nintendo’s policies against it.
Source: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_II_version_differences
Come final fantasy 3, the Moogle had firmly cemented its place within the fantasy fantasy
realm. However in FF2, we had beavers instead of moogles. Many fans theorized that these
beavers served as the inspiration for the moogles. However there exists concept art
for ff2 that shows moogles were indeed planned to appear. However by the end of the final
version of the game, the beavers had replaced them.